OUR VIEW: A proposal to use the vacant Carraway property for programs for former prisoners and recovering drug addicts generates a familiar but vexing dilemma

The residents of Druid Hills oppose a minister's proposal to turn the old Carraway hospital site into a housing and service center for people who've been in prison and for recovering addicts.

Those attending a neighborhood association meeting voted 19-0 against the project, and who can blame them?

In truth, most of us wouldn't like the idea of our neighborhood becoming home to a program catering to people with criminal histories and addictions. That's so, even when we recognize the need for these programs and the good they can do.

The dilemma is summed up nicely by Martha Bozeman, a Central City resident who grew up in Druid Hills and still has family there. "We always want to help people fallen on bad times," Bozeman told a News reporter. "But we're worried about the safety of our children and our property values."

Those are valid concerns, and variations of them surface whether we're talking about halfway houses and group homes or garbage dumps and railroad hubs. We all want to protect our property and our children from threats.

The tendency is so common, it has spawned its own syndrome, known in shorthand as NIMBY. Spelled out, the underlying sentiment is a little more clear: Not in my backyard.

When the complaint surfaces, it almost always is followed by a vexing question: Then, where? There's rarely a good answer.

The dilemma is particularly agonizing with regard to the Carraway proposal. What the Rev. Andrew Jenkins envisions is a "ministry mall" that would in its first year house as many as 40 former prisoners and 25 recovering drug addicts; provide an array of social services under one roof; and eventually include community development-style activities such as building single-family homes and recruiting businesses to the community.

It's a project that meets a real need and one that could pay dividends to the whole state. Alabama prison officials have lamented the large number of inmates who exit the system only to return within a matter of years because of the lack of assistance for them on the outside. For former prisoners to succeed, the state said, they often need good mentors, mental health and substance-abuse services, and real help getting shelter, transportation and jobs.

The Village sounds like just the ticket. Jenkins points out the program has worked with about 300 former prisoners at other sites in recent years, and only three have returned to jail. That is the sort of record that should please do-gooders and budget hardliners alike.

Also arguing in The Village's favor right now is this: It's the only known suitor for the Carraway property, whose idleness represents its own threat to the surrounding neighborhood.

But that doesn't mean people who live nearby want to see Jenkins' project come to life, and it's easy to understand why. It would be great if a compromise could be reached that would satisfy the community's concerns and allow Jenkins' program to go forward.

For now, all we have is one community's reasonable answer -- not here -- and one vexing question: Then, where?